Install & flash

Everything you need to build a firmware image for a Core tile and flash it over USB. If you only want to build in the browser, you can skip all of this and use Studio instead.

Prerequisites

The C SDK builds with the standard ARM embedded toolchain. You’ll need:

• ARM GCC (arm-none-eabi-gcc) — the cross-compiler.
• make — the build runner.
• Python 3 — runs coregen, which generates the board headers every build depends on.
• dfu-util — flashes firmware over USB.

On macOS with Homebrew:

brew install arm-none-eabi-gcc dfu-util make python

On Debian/Ubuntu, the equivalents are gcc-arm-none-eabi, dfu-util, make, and python3 via apt. Windows has a few extra steps — see below.

Whichever platform you’re on, this checks the whole toolchain at once and names anything that’s missing:

make doctor

Windows

The SDK builds on Windows, with one hard requirement: run it from Git Bash (or an MSYS2 shell), not cmd.exe or PowerShell. The Makefile uses POSIX shell tools throughout, and cmd.exe has none of them.

winget install Git.Git                        # provides Git Bash
winget install Python.Python.3.12             # tick "Add python.exe to PATH"
winget install Arm.GnuArmEmbeddedToolchain    # arm-none-eabi-gcc

Then open Git Bash (not the installer’s Git CMD) and run make doctor from the SDK folder. Three more Windows-specific things to know:

• Paths with spaces don’t build. Make treats a space as a separator, so a project under C:\Users\First Last\… cannot be compiled at all. Keep the SDK and your projects somewhere like C:\dev\ — the build refuses up front and says so, rather than failing later with a confusing message.
• python3 may be a stub. Windows ships an alias that opens the Microsoft Store instead of running Python. The Makefile probes python3, py -3, and python and picks one that actually runs; override with make PYTHON=… if needed.
• dfu-util needs a driver. Install dfu-util, then use Zadig once to bind the WinUSB driver to the DFU device. Without it dfu-util reports no DFU-capable device even when the Core is plugged in and in DFU mode.

Build a firmware image

The SDK ships a starter project for every Core under templates/ — copy one, rename the folder, and make builds it as-is. See Quickstart for that path.

Building a project of your own, from any directory, means naming the Core variant with TILE. The build emits a .bin image:

make TILE=Core.ST.L4.1     # the Core's catalog id
# every Core has one — find yours in the catalog

Flash over USB

USB-programmable Cores — currently Core.ST.L4 — support runtime USB DFU: no buttons, no jumpers, no probe. Connect the Core over USB and run:

make flash-dfu

The Makefile handles the whole sequence for you:

• detects the USB serial port (/dev/tty.usbmodem* on macOS, /dev/ttyACM* on Linux),
• sends a 1200-baud touch to trigger DFU mode (the same convention Arduino uses),
• downloads the new firmware with dfu-util, and reboots.

Edit code, make flash-dfu, repeat. That’s the inner loop. Pass SERIAL_PORT=… if you have several boards attached and want to name the one to touch.

Flashing from Windows

Windows COM ports have no /dev entry, so the port can’t be auto-detected. Name it explicitly — find it under Device Manager → Ports (COM & LPT) — and install pyserial so the Makefile can perform the touch:

pip install pyserial
make flash-dfu SERIAL_PORT=COM5

Without SERIAL_PORT, make flash-dfu skips the touch and assumes the Core is already in DFU mode — hold BOOT0 while plugging in USB, then run it. Either way dfu-util needs the WinUSB driver bound with Zadig first.

First flash & manual DFU

For the very first flash on a board using the ROM bootloader, hold BOOT0 while plugging in USB, then flash normally — after that, make flash-dfu works on its own. To drive dfu-util by hand:

dfu-util -l    # verify the device appears: Found DFU: [0483:df11]
dfu-util -a 0 -s 0x08000000:leave -D build/my-firmware.bin

SWD debugging

For live debugging, flash via SWD with OpenOCD instead. SWD and USB DFU coexist — use SWD to step through code and make flash-dfu for quick iteration:

make flash     # flash via SWD (OpenOCD)